Islamic cleric Raed Salah

In a press conference in occupied Palestine’s Umm al-Fahm, the leader of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement, Sheikh Raed Salah, said he lived under harsh and oppressive circumstances, as well as attempts to impose on him the life of a mute, during his 17-month term in the Israeli prison.

In his first post-freedom speech, Sheikh Salah talked on Monday about the harsh circumstances he experienced in the Israeli occupation prison, after a detention that lasted for 17 months, saying, “I lived my entire days in isolation, moving from one isolated place to another.”

“They wanted to imprison me in a hole, alone and isolated. Rather, they imposed on me certain circumstances where I was not only in an isolation ward, but rather isolated from the isolation ward," he explained.

Sheikh Salah indicated that during his 17-month prison term, he succeeded in authoring 11 books and booklets, the most important of which is a "political reading of the Holy Qur'an" as well as a collection of poetry book he called "The Prophet's Spring.”

On February 10, 2020, the Occupation Court issued a final ruling against Sheikh Raed Salah, with an actual prison term of 28 months.

The occupation court in Haifa had convicted Salah on November 24, 2019 of the charge of “inciting terror and supporting a banned organization.”